You Weren't Looking
by Tarafina
Summary: Maybe it's too many Disney movies growing up, but she feels like any giant, angry monster probably just has a thorn in its paw that needs removing. Darcy's not sure where on Green Bean's giant, muscular body that thorn is, but she's very willing to search for it when he's still his average-sized, pink self.


**Title**: You Weren't Looking (But I Found You Anyway)  
**Category**: Thor/The Avengers  
**Genre**: Humor/Romance  
**Ship**: Darcy Lewis/Bruce Banner  
**Rating**: Teen  
**For**: Day #2 – Hello | Darcy Lewis Week (I'm late to the party and I don't care)  
**Word Count**: 2,859  
**Summary**: Maybe it's too many Disney movies growing up, but she feels like every giant, angry monster probably just has a thorn in its paw that needs removing. She's not sure where on Green Bean's giant, muscular body that thorn is, but she's very willing to search for it when he's still his average-sized, pink self.

**_You Weren't Looking (But I Found You Anyway)_**  
-1/1-

Darcy hates being ignored.

She realizes she's surrounded by spacey scientists that spend way too much time in their heads, —Jane has more than opened her eyes to that—, but when she sets eyes on the handsome scientist with the fluffiest dark hair, she wants a little more recognition for her abrupt hello.

Sure, she probably caught him off guard. He was leaving his lab, head buried the papers he's shuffling through, and she just kind of jumped in front of him, waved a hand, and said 'Hi!' in that demanding, off-putting way of hers that Jane says can be more than a little intimidating. Especially for people who hardly ever look up to see the world moving around them.

But Darcy doesn't do subtle. She also doesn't do 'being ignored.' So when Dr. Fluffy side-steps her, muttering under his breath about 'scienc-y' stuff that she's long learned to just block out, often going to that place in her head reserved for cute kittens and Ryan Gosling, she finds herself more than a little irritated by his quick dismissal.

She chooses to let him get away with it just this once, but it really only encourages her to try harder. She finds other ways to interrupt his own little world, forcing her way in. She brings coffee one day, but he wrinkles his nose. She learns he likes tea; foreign, hard to pronounce, herbal teas that she may or may not have to search all over the city to find. When she brings that, he lightens up a little, but he still doesn't technically say hello or acknowledge her outside of it, and he never asks her name.

He does ask her where she bought the tea so he can stop in himself. She recognizes that as the dismissal it probably is and promptly ignores it.

She learns his name is Bruce. By learns she means she bugged Jane until her favorite scientist got tired of being interrupted and having her focus taken away from her work, and finally told her. She also learns that he turns into a giant green rage monster when his emotions are high. It could be because she's an adrenaline junkie, or maybe just because she has very little self-preservation, but that doesn't scare her.

Maybe it's too many Disney movies growing up, but she feels like every giant, angry monster probably just has a thorn in its paw that needs removing. She's not sure where on Green Bean's giant, muscular body that thorn is, but she's very willing to search for it when he's still his average-sized, pink self.

Of course, she voices that lack of fear in true Darcy fashion, "So Jane tells me you turn into a not-so Jolly Green Giant sometimes… _Cool_."

He glares at her, takes his glasses off so he can pinch the bridge of his nose, and takes in a deep breath. When he replaces his glasses, his brow is cocked and he's frowning in her direction. "I'm doing very important research here… I don't know if this is another one of Tony's tests or if—if maybe you just don't have that panic button that most people do, but I'm not the kind of person you need to be spending your time with."

Since that's the most words she's gotten out of him since _ever_, she chooses to ignore the warning and instead focus on that fact that tall(er than her), dark, and handsome has finally lifted his head up from the science fog and put all of his attention on her.

She perks up, smiling widely. "That old thing? I totally tossed my panic button out to make room for other important things… like rare pop culture trivia that is almost _guaranteed_ never to be needed, especially in a crisis. But I ramble when I freak out, so I guess it's not the _worst _thing to have on my mind." Her eyes widen for emphasis. "At least when I die by some random mistake, probably because I pissed off the wrong suit waiting in line at Starbucks for his way too expensive coffee, then at least I'll know I died spreading wisdom. And who can really say that, am I right?"

He blinks at her, head tilted with that furrowed brow like he can feel a headache coming on the more she talks. It's a regular on Jane's face, although less recently since she's had the big Norse God to work off even Darcy-induced stress.

"So listen, I was thinking," Darcy continues, ignoring the face, like she's good at, "While I've got your attention and everything—"

And that would be about the time the alarms start going off to call the Avengers forward to go and save the world or something. She rolls her eyes, shoulders slumping. Banner's already stripping off his lab coat; apparently if there's one thing that will definitely pull him out of his science coma, it's the world in crisis. She files it away in her 'Need-to-Know-About-Fluffy' list. Sure, she could call him Bruce in her head, but his hair looks especially fluffy lately.

"We can pick this up when you get back," she tells him, waving a dismissive hand. "You save the world, I'll calm Jane down from her totally not necessary concerned-the-God-of-Thunder-somehow-won't-make-it freak out. We'll meet back here, trade quips, you'll tell me not to bother with you and there'll be some big epic drama-filled speech centered around: 'I'm a monster, _rawr'_," She does a claw-hand and bares her teeth for emphasis, "Wherein I'll lay out a detailed list of why I don't care. Or, okay, not so much a _list_…" She shrugs. "I mean, it's really just one bullet point, but it's underlined, so you _gots _to know it's important." Her eyes flash for emphasis. "But it mainly consists of, 'I'm an adult and I can make my own decisions and I think you're hot and we could have fun and you should probably do something besides science and world saving and I'm your go-to-girl for that kind of deal, so, y'know… Like the overplayed pop song goes… _We barely know each other because you keep ignoring me even though I'm _flawless_, and you still haven't asked my name or said hello even though I'm here like, _every _day, but that's fine, it's cool, maybe we can get tea some time… or whatever. Tea's not really my thing. I mainline coffee hardcore, but I can make an exception, right? Because I'm flexible like that._" She pauses, turns her eyes away, thumbs hooked in the loops of her jeans, and shrugs. "Or something like that. I'm not much of a pop music fan, myself."

"I think that was the longest run-on sentence I've ever heard…" he mused, staring at her curiously. "I… I'm sorry." He shook his head. "I'm Dr. Bruce Banner…" He held a hand out. "You're…?"

She grins, reaches a hand out and shakes his. "Oh, you know, future love of your life, bearer of your half-white, half-green children… _Oh!_" Her eyes lit up. "I always wanted to have mixed kids; they're always cuter!" She's still shaking his hand, slowly, her grip rather firm though. "Darcy Lewis, by the way," she adds, and before he can react, throws him off by saying, "Hey, is the hair genetic? Are we gonna have pale mint-green kids with fluffy hair?"

His mouth gapes for awhile, before the door to the lab opens and Steve Rogers is staring at them. "Dr. Banner?" he asks. "We're needed for…" His eyes side-glance Darcy, "An urgent strategy meeting."

"Oh, _oh_ right," he replies, nodding. "Sorry, I…" He looks at Darcy and then back at Steve before clearing his throat and pulling his hand back from hers. "I'm on my way."

With a short nod, Rogers leaves, and Darcy raises a brow at the good doctor. "So? Me, you, tea after you let loose on the bad guys?"

He fiddles with his glasses, readjusting them in a nervous gesture. "I really don't think that's a good idea, Miss. Lewis," he tells her, in that professor-y voice that means he's trying to be professional and polite.

Two words Darcy rarely takes very seriously.

"It's because I brought up our future children, Fantasia and Phillipé, isn't it?" she says with mock-regret.

"No, it's—" He pauses. "_Fantasia and Phillip__é__?_" he repeats, forehead wrinkled. "Those names are awful."

She waves her hands in the air between them. "We can either discuss this over tea, or you can forfeit now and in a few years, when Fantasia's running around, asking why her name is so fantastically _awesome_, you can tell her you didn't have the balls to argue with me…"

He draws a deep breath. "I really have to go," he tells her.

"Okay." She backs up out of his way and gives a long sigh of resignation. "But I'm already thinking of middle names and I really don't think you're going to like them…"

He ducks his head but she can still see the way his lips quirk at the corners. "It was nice to meet you, Miss. Lewis."

She snorts. "Now you're just being polite. _Nice_, I doubt it. Shockingly unusual for you, _possibly_. But I like to think I leave an impression, so I'm totally okay with that."

He walks past her toward the doors, but she takes the way he looks back at her with obvious curiosity to be a good sign.

Later, when she finds out he and the team are back and relatively unscathed, aside from being downright exhausted, she leaves a tea in his lab for him, a sticky-note attached with the address of the tea shop and a time for them to meet. She's a little (a _lot_) anxious, but she covers it by rambling at the woman at the counter about how to properly pronounce one of her many herbal concoctions from somewhere in Europe, before eventually buying a pastry to stuff her mouth with so she'll shut herself up.

It's nearly an hour after the time she told him to be there, when she finally gives up. She tells herself that maybe he just got distracted with his work, or that he didn't see the note, or maybe he hasn't slept off all his world-saving hard work, but she feels a distinct stab of disappointment as she stands from the table. She tosses her empty cup in the garbage, along with his full one, and brushes crumbs from her hands and off her shirt, where they collect not-surprisingly on her pronounced bust, not so subtly highlighted in an especially attractive, and purposely picked out, green top.

She's walking out of the tea shop, the bell ringing above her head, when she bumps into a solid body, a snappy, scathing complaint at the end of her tongue – now is _not _the time to be getting on her bad side! – when she looks up and sees her fluffy scientist staring back at her, looking a little sheepish.

"Hi," she says, her voice a little higher than usual, surprise coloring both it and her face.

He offers a half-smile. "Hello," he returns, before wiping his palms on his pants. "I…" He glances past her to the shop. "I'm late," he says.

She snorts. "Yeah, I noticed. Y'know, most chicks aren't fans of being kept waiting."

He nods. "And you?"

She shrugs. "I'm not most chicks," she admits. "But I think my ego's been kicked pretty hard in the 'get-Banner-to-notice-me' column, so maybe this time I'm leaning a little more toward normal female reaction of not appreciating the wait time…" She turns her eyes away from his and stares down the road, where people move to and fro, weaving in and out of each other seamlessly. "I mean, it wasn't like an 'on hold, listening to that god-awful music' kind of wait, but more of a 'questioning everything I said and wondering just how much of a freak you must think I am' kind of wait. Which I think probably sucks more, because at least with the other, you can hang up the phone, this way I just sort've sat around and hoped the lady behind the counter wasn't secretly pitying me for being stood up…" She looks back at him. "FYI… She was."

He licks his lips and gives a nod, his eyes moving from hers to her cheek, glancing briefly at her lips before moving again to her cheek. "I wasn't sure I should come," he tells her honestly. "I—I got the tea and I told myself I wouldn't. That _this_… You and me…" He shakes his head, smiling caustically. "You're _young_ and you're brash and a little foolhardy and I… I have enough control issues. Like you said, I turn into a not-so-jolly giant and that isn't safe or smart for anybody to get involved in. Especially not someone as… as…" He waves at her. "Bright and alive and young as you are."

"I can't tell which one you're leaning on more," she replies. "The fact that I'm young or that you've got anger issues that turn you green…" Her eyes narrow. "I'm young," she agrees. "But to quote a totally kickass and relevant song form the nineties, '_Age ain't nothing but a number.'_" She shrugs. "And besides, you're not as old as you think you are, even if the grey hair might say different…" She reaches out and brushes her fingers over it, smiling when she feels his fluffy hair for the first time.

When he pulls back almost immediately, defensively crossing his arms over his chest, she raises a brow. "And you're right, I'm loud and pushy and that probably isn't going to help with those hair-trigger issues of yours." She cocks her head, long hair slipping over her shoulder. "Or maybe learning self-control is a better idea." She smirks. "Tony's helped, obviously. So maybe dating me and letting me poke the bear, both proverbially _and _literally," She wiggles her eyebrows, "is going to help you out in the long run."

He eyes her warily, not exactly latching on to her logic. "So you think we should date because somehow your fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants personality is going to keep The Other Guy from rearing his green head whenever something triggers me?" he asks dubiously.

"I think it can't hurt to test out a hypothesis," she tells him, using a little scienc-y wording to get him in her corner. "Think of it this way…" She reaches for him, smiling when he doesn't flinch _quite _as noticeably. "If it works, _awesome!_" Her eyebrows hike happily. "You get a hot, young, totally cool girlfriend that will rock your little green world in the sack!"

His lips twitch with amusement and for a second, she feels him lean into her hand.

"And if not, well…" She shrugs. "At least you won't have children named Fantasia Marsupial and Phillipé Atom."

"Atom," he repeats with an odd sort of fondness. Before it's ruined with a frown as he wonders, "You know marsupial isn't really a _name_, so much as an infraclass of mammals, right…?"

"Yeah, but isn't it just a _bombtastic _name?" She laughs. "I mean, that's going down in the books, somewhere between Pilot and Apple!"

With a sigh, he shakes his head slightly, but there's amusement in his face and his posture is becoming more and more relaxed. Darcy can smell triumph on the horizon.

"So?" She drags her hand from his shoulder, walking her fingers down his purple shirt-covered bicep. "Since you're here and everything, why not let a hot, young, trouble-making girl buy you a tea?"

He stares at her a long moment, this time in her eye, before finally he nods. "Okay."

Grinning, she moves to his side, hooks her arm with his and pulls him toward the tea shop. "Good answer, Doc. I guarantee, you aren't going to regret this one."

He raises a brow that says he's pretty sure she's wrong.

So she imagines eventually, with her general ease of getting into trouble and pushing the wrong buttons, he might have his second-thoughts, but _regret_? Pfft. Not a chance.

She's not at all surprised when she's right.

Some years later, when they have a son, they name him Atom. She pushes for Marsupial, but he doesn't budge. That doesn't stop her from using it, whether it's on the birth certificate or not. She carried that little green dude for nine months, she'll call him Atom Marsupial if she damn well wants to. And besides, for some reason, even when he's mad and his skin is turning rapidly minty green, all she has to do is ruffle his fluffy black hair and ask him if he's being mommy's favorite marsupial and the anger recedes. That's gotta count for something, right?

People should just quit questioning her badass judgment, 'cause so far? Every Banner, even their green alter-ego's, have a weakness for Darcy. And she's happy to use that to her advantage whenever necessary, like to curb temper-tantrums or to lure her workaholic husband away from his microscope and into her bed. And really? Who can blame her…?

[**end.**]


End file.
